A drug trafficker known as “Cat” or “Catboy” is the second Canadian suspected of working with Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, whose landmark Brooklyn trial is ongoing.

Stephen Tello, 39, a former real estate agent who has lived in Montreal, Toronto and Kitchener, Ont., is serving an 11-year, eight-month sentence in Canada following a Nova Scotia RCMP drugs sting codenamed Operation Harrington.

However, court documents show he also faces a separate cocaine importation indictment in the U.S., which accuses him of trafficking with the Mexican kingpin for more than five years, from October 2008 to January 2014.

After the arrest of Toronto-based Mykhaylo Koretskyy, 43, in Curacao in January 2018, Tello is now the second Canadian firmly tied to Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel which, even in its leader’s absence, runs enormous amounts of cocaine, meth and heroin into the U.S. and Canada.

What’s remarkable about Tello, and the wider Canadian case which saw him and others imprisoned, is the number of associated individuals who have since been murdered.

In August 2014, before he could be charged, the man who unwittingly introduced Tello to undercover RCMP officers was killed in White Rock, B.C.

In January 2015, a financier for Tello was shot dead in Alberta.

And, in November 2018, a man convicted in the same roundup was murdered in Montreal after serving his sentence.

In fact, court documents show RCMP had serious concerns for their own officers’ safety after the Harrington takedowns. During a preliminary court hearing, an unknown man was suspected, while sitting in court, of surreptitiously attempting to photograph an undercover RCMP officer known only as UCO Joe, who had led the case.

‘Alex’

In the U.S., Tello, Koretskyy, Guzman and well-known Colombian gangster Hildebrando Alexander Cifuentes-Villa, or “Alex,” have been indicted together by the Southern District of New York.

Koretskyy is currently battling against extradition to the U.S. from the Caribbean. Cifuentes-Villa has already been sent to the U.S., having been apprehended in Mexico in 2014. A U.S. Department of Justice official said they had no comment on whether the U.S. would seek Tello’s extradition, or whether such discussions had taken place.

Koretskyy has hired the same lawyer as Guzman, Jeffrey Lichtman. Lichtman has not returned repeated requests for comment. Adam Boni, a Toronto lawyer who previously represented Tello, declined to comment on his former client’s indictment.

“El Chapo” Guzman, left, seen with Alex Cifuentes-Villa and an unidentified woman. Canadians Stephen Tello and Mykhaylo Koretskyy have been indicted in the U.S., suspected of working with Guzman and Cifuentes-Villa.U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York

Conspiracies

When Guzman was extradited from Mexico to the U.S. in January 2017, prosecutors proceeded on a 17-count indictment in the Eastern District of New York. It includes allegations of numerous counts of conspiracy to murder, drug trafficking on a major scale and $14 billion worth of ill-gained assets.

Among Guzman’s many other existing U.S. indictments, however, is the one that names the Canadians and Cifuentes-Villa. Exact details on how the four allegedly conspired are not provided, but they are named as a group in orders to unseal their individual indictments.

Like Koretskyy, Tello stands accused by the U.S. of conspiring with “others known and unknown … to violate the narcotics laws of the United States,” from about October 2008 to January 2014. The indictment was first unsealed in July 2015 but was not publicly disclosed during his Canadian trial, although RCMP suspected Sinaloa ties.

It says the Canadian distributed “five kilograms and more” of cocaine, “intending and knowing that such substance would be unlawfully imported into the United States,” and seeks a forfeiture of assets.

Stephen Tello, who has been indicted over suspected ties to “El Chapo” Guzman.Facebook

‘Russian Mike’

Dual Ukrainian-Canadian citizen Koretskyy is also known as “Russian Mike” or “Cobra.” He flew Air Canada from Toronto to Curacao on Jan. 3, 2018 but was arrested as soon as he landed, at the direction of the U.S. and Interpol.

Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told the National Post that Koretskyy is a suspected “major” trafficker for Guzman and others, wanted for allegedly running millions of dollars worth of cocaine from the U.S. into Canada by stashing it in commercial trucks. Any U.S. case against him will rely on secret recordings and the confessions of other traffickers, sources say.

Koretskyy’s sealed U.S. indictment was nearly four years old when he was arrested in Curacao last year, and was only unsealed days later.

RCMP previously told the National Post they knew of Koretskyy’s case from the press but had no information to share, yet court records show an RCMP warrant was issued for Koretskyy on May 1, 2015, in Toronto, for trafficking in a substance and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

No details have been made available on why, years later, when Koretskyy was wanted by both the U.S. and Interpol, he was able to fly from Toronto to Curacao. Court records offer no further information.

Asked about what became of Koretskyy’s 2015 warrant, as well as how much the Canadians and Americans cooperated on Tello’s U.S. indictment during Harrington, RCMP replied by email:

“The RCMP is aware of media reports about Mykhaylo Koretskyy and cannot comment any further. The RCMP does not comment on specific investigative methods, tools and techniques outside of court.”

This Feb. 22, 2014 file photo shows Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, being escorted to a helicopter in Mexico City following his capture in the beach resort town of Mazatlan.Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo

Operation Harrington

The Canadian sting that snared Tello and 14 others was a two-year undercover probe launched in the spring of 2013 by the Nova Scotia RCMP Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit, aided by a number of international agencies.

Harrington first targeted Gary Meister of Nova Scotia and Albertan Jahanbakhsh Meshkati, both suspected of major drug trafficking. But the probe soon widened.

Charges were laid in eight conspiracies to bring cocaine to the east coast of Canada from Antigua, Brazil, Colombia, Guyana and the U.S., and four separate trafficking investigations were launched. Two government employees were charged — one from the Coast Guard (Meister’s brother), the other from the Department of National Defence.

During Harrington, undercover officers even travelled to the Caribbean to pose as would-be cocaine transporters, meeting with Guyanese suppliers. Court records show RCMP operatives exchanged messages with unwitting Harrington suspects using the same encrypted Blackberry-based system favoured by the crime ring.

Living at the time of his April 2015 arrest in Toronto’s Upper Beaches, Tello was tried on conspiring with two others to import at least 1,000 kilograms of cocaine into Canada between October 2014 and March 2015; two separate counts of trafficking a total of three kilograms of cocaine in Toronto; and possession of the proceeds of crime. He was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced in April 2018 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to 15 years, less time served.

None of the cocaine discussed in Tello’s importation conspiracy actually entered Canada, as he backed away from the proposed “deal” at the last minute, going silent on the RCMP agents.

After the Harrington swoops, filings outline how RCMP fretted about officer safety. During a preliminary hearing an unknown man was suspected, while sitting in court, of attempting to photograph an undercover RCMP officer known as UCO Joe, who had led the case. Numerous Harrington suspects were linked to dangerous international groups and tensions were high because some suspects had ended up dead.

Canadian 2012 Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding was charged in Harrington but remains at large. RCMP believe he has ties to the Sinaloa Cartel of El Chapo, via a spouse.

Meshkati was never charged during Harrington as he was shot dead in August 2014 in White Rock, B.C. It was Meshkati who first connected Tello to the undercover RCMP men who led the case, court records show.

Cuong “Andy” Hoang, a man RCMP believed was backing Tello financially, was murdered in Alberta in January 2015.

In this Nov. 14, 2012 file photo, Colombian Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa is escorted by National Guard officers during his deportation to Colombia from the Simon Bolivar airport in Maiquetia, near Caracas, Venezuela.Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo

Trial

Cifuentes-Villa, the fourth man indicted with the Canadians and El Chapo in New York, has been mentioned frequently at Guzman’s Brooklyn trial, as co-operating narcos describe the inner workings of the latter’s Sinaloa Cartel. Cifuentes-Villa’s brother, Jorge Milton, indicated how Alex had at one point lived in the Mexican mountains with El Chapo as they arranged deals.

As Sinaloa fought barbaric turf wars for Mexico’s drug plazas, it moved multi-ton loads of cocaine north from Colombia to Mexico and then farther north by air, sea and land. Narcos have claimed on the stand that the corruption which allowed Guzman to flourish reached the highest levels of the Mexican government. A wild array of smuggling techniques described in court include carbon fibre planes that evaded radar, tunnels under the U.S. border and cocaine in jalapeño cans.

The Medellín-based Cifuentes-Villa crime clan have worked for decades with Colombia’s right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing rebels, as well as various international crime groups. Their speciality: trafficking drugs under the cover of legitimate businesses such as agricultural manufacturing. The Sinaloa Cartel has long been one of their biggest clients.

Francisco, another Cifuentes-Villa brother, was a pilot for Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar. He was murdered in 2007 on the order of Escobar’s successor at the top of the Medellín underworld — the one-legged mafioso Diego Murillo Bejarano, or “Don Berna.”

A map of the Cifuentes-Villa crime organization, with Alex below their partner “El Chapo” Guzman.

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